


that cuts a path from day to day

by due_eventide



Category: Samurai Sentai Shinkenger
Genre: Character Study, Coping With Life, Family, Father-Son Relationship, Gen, Growing Up, Kurando-Centric, Mostly Observational/Reflective/Introspective, Parenthood, Somewhat Coming of Age, also about the passage of time, basically just follows chiaki's dad, consider this an experiment lol, it's just a series of various moments and introspections, probably too vague, references to violence, this is about chiaki's life through the perspective of his dad, this is not particularly deeply bound by any story/plot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-17
Updated: 2021-02-17
Packaged: 2021-03-13 06:16:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,687
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29522133
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/due_eventide/pseuds/due_eventide
Summary: Kurando was born a soldier, and he will always be a soldier. He hopes his son never has to be one.Reflections on Kurando Tani's life.
Relationships: Tani Kurando & Tani Chiaki
Comments: 2
Kudos: 8





	that cuts a path from day to day

Kurando Tani has not had much of a normal life. He was trained as a samurai, grew up under the thumb of a war that might not ever end. He knows little of the world beyond fighting, protecting, serving. It is a necessity; every child born to the families is prepared for the inevitability of battle, ready to devote their lives to the Shiba household.

Kurando is young but he is cognizant of this tragedy. He thinks that perhaps his life will never be normal, that he will fight until he no longer can, and when he can no longer fight, his descendants will take his place. 

Kurando Tani does not fear death. He has always been prepared for the possibility. The life of a Shinkenger is one without stability. Kurando never knows if he will live to see the next day. And it makes his life meaningful.

But Kurando is still young and he has little yet to lose, and so he fights without fear. But still, he fights with as much devotion as the others, who are older and wiser and with more to lose.

The others fight because they are bound by blood the same as he is, but above all, they fight for their children, who will one day have to take their places.

Kyoko Shiraishi has a daughter of four years or so, whom she speaks of fondly. She talks about her daughter, about how she hopes that little girl will grow to be a most graceful warrior. A beautiful little girl, she says, who is caring and virtuous and brave. 

Ryuzabaro Ikenami’s son is around the same age as Kyoko Shiraishi’s daughter and he has already begun training for the time he will be summoned to take part in the battle, and has already shown great promise in mojikara. He will learn the way of the sword and the way of kabuki, the same as his father before him. He is already passionate, already ready to fight. Ryuzabaro Ikenami is proud of his son.

Kurando Tani is not yet a father, but often he wonders. He wonders if he is destined to raise more soldiers. If he will parent someone just like himself and his father and his grandfather, bring a child into a life filled with nothing but the clashing of swords. 

-

They hear news of Dokoku’s imminent arrival. They’ve always known of Dokoku’s existence, but it’s the first Kurando has ever heard of Dokoku leaving his shelter on the Sanzu, at least in the past few hundred years. 

It means the end. For either Dokoku or for the Shinkengers. Or for them both.

Kurando holds his Shinkenmaru tightly in his hands; after so many years his weapon has become part of him, an extension of his body and of his power. If he is going to die, then it is only fitting that he does with a blade in his hand. He is not alone in this feeling, and the other four Shinkengers, his lord most of all, are resigned to their fates. 

It is highly unlikely that all five of them will survive, and it is highly unlikely that a single one could survive unscathed. But they are ready.

The kuroko are as resolute as the Shinkengers themselves are. To see them be so willing to risk their lives for such a battle, for something so unknown and so threatening—Kurando realizes too late that he should have been more grateful, that the kuroko were to be admired, in a way.

They choose to fight even though they have no power, whereas he and the others were born powerful and have been forced into a life of battle, discipline, servitude. Here, at their final hour, they stand on equal ground, the Shinkengers and their kuroko, bracing themselves for a battle that they most likely will not survive.

-

The lord is dead, and in his place, they have already installed his replacement. A child, a boy Kurando has never met but who he almost thinks he should pity. Kurando survives, getting off easy compared to the others. The worst he faces is a hole in his gut that is quickly sewn shut. It hurts to move too much, it hurts to laugh, it hurts even just to eat. But he is alive. 

Kurando Tani returns home, alive but unsure of where to go next. His life until now has been nothing but fighting, nothing but serving. But Dokoku is sealed, and he won’t return, at least not for years to come, and so he can go home and live the life that he would’ve, had he not been born a samurai. 

But he is a samurai still, and Dokoku’s defeat does not suddenly bring that fact to an end. He has looked death in the face and he has escaped it. Now he faces life and he doesn’t know how to embrace it.

When Kurando closes his eyes he remembers darkness cut through by the burning of wood and cloth, he remembers blood and he remembers numbness but no pain. He remembers having a purpose. But that chapter has closed, punctuated by the wound in his stomach.

Kurando Tani has always known death. He must now learn how to live.

He wonders what will become of the others, who he had not known much more beyond their tentative ties as brothers and sisters in arms. He wonders how they might be able to tolerate living, now that they can. How they will be able to move past it all. How he can do it himself.

There are few things Kurando Tani fears. The future is one of them.

-

He readjusts to life more easily and more quickly than he realizes. 

It is so much more simple than he anticipated; the only difference is that now he is not a call away from battle. The threat of Dokoku is sealed away, in the most literal fashion. He does not fear for his own safety, or the safety of his family or his friends. 

He smiles easily these days; every time it is genuine. He gets a nice job with decent pay. He finds a girl, he proposes within months, they get married within the year. They find a nice house in a good neighborhood, and everything is perfect. 

Kurando is still young when his son is born. And when he sees his son he does not see a soldier. He sees a child, a bright little human who has the world to explore, who has a lifetime to become something more. 

They name him Chiaki, after the brightness that he imbues upon them when they see him, upon the happiness they wish that he will carry with him through his entire life.

Kurando’s life is stable, rooted down and impenetrable. He has found a purpose in his family, small and new and beautiful. He lives in a world that no longer needs to be guarded at every waking moment—a world where his son will thrive. 

He looks at his son and he resolves that he will be the happiest child he can be. He will live his life like any other child, he will grow up outside of the shadow of war. His son will be a samurai, but he will not be burdened by tradition and impending death and devotion to a lord that he might never meet. He will be strong, and he will also be free. 

Chiaki is not a soldier. Chiaki is not a weapon. And Kurando is sure he never will be. 

-

When his wife dies, Kurando realizes that stability is merely an illusion. 

After having spent the first few decades of his life anticipating his own death, the reality of the situation is that death is not something anyone can truly be prepared for. It is something sudden and cruel.

Kurando has nowhere to turn to but to himself. The house is too big now, one less person to fill up space. One less person to hold onto. So Kurando holds tighter to his son, to make up for one less pair of hands.

At least Chiaki is still a baby, and so he will not remember his mother and he will not remember losing her. But Kurando worries about the vacuum that she will leave behind. 

Kurando Tani isn’t someone who is used to working by himself; he was one part of a greater machine for so long, and his identity has been tied to his family for even longer. 

Inside, Kurando feels pressure building, pushing outward under the surface of his skin. His chest feels tight and hollow at once. 

But he does not want his son to suffer. He cannot allow his personal pain to permeate Chiaki’s life. Chiaki is a child who should only be happy, and who should never have to fear.

Kurando smiles at his son, and it is genuine.

-

Raising Chiaki alone is hectic and confusing, and it requires patience. Kurando learns to balance work and taking care of a child whose curiosity knows no boundaries. When Kurando’s not at work, he’s with Chiaki, ensuring that he is cared for and watched at all times. 

And though Dokoku has been sealed for years and the Shinkengers have not been called back in just as long, that does not mean that Kurando ever stops being a samurai. Kurando is a samurai and he will be one until he dies. His blade is a permanent part of him, fused into his bones, and his mojikara will flow through every word he writes, whether he wills it or not. 

So even now, years after the fact, he still trains, and when he trains, Chiaki watches with rapt attention, with all the admiration that a little boy can have for his father. 

Chiaki becomes fixated when Kurando grows vines with each stroke of his brush. Kurando commands the leaves to creep toward Chiaki’s fat little fingertips, and the boy laughs, squeals with childish delight. Chiaki is young and his hands are small and shaky, but Kurando imagines that when Chiaki is older, the vibrancy with which he now lives his life will translate into an abundance of mojikara, into a ceaseless forest of power.

As he grows up, Kurando regales Chiaki with stories of his time as a Shinkenger, omitting the more grizzly aspects of his last battle. He tells him the history of the Shiba family and of the Shinkengers to the best of his recollection, and he recites to him the legends of the Gedoushu, of the Ayakashi and Doukoku.

Chiaki is eager to learn, however small he is; he is filled with anticipation. Chiaki is clever, a quick thinker, but he is still too small to begin his own training, though he is not too far away from the age where Kurando’s former teammates began instructing their own children.

Chiaki will likely never have to fight, as it is more than likely that Dokoku will still be weak for decades to come. He will not have to fight as long as Dokoku is sealed. He will not be subservient, he will be in control of his life and of the things he wants and believes.

Kurando will not do as his peers did, as his father did, and his ancestors did. Chiaki will learn, one day, the way of the samurai. But he will learn it in his own time, find his own path. He will become a samurai on his own, in his own way. 

It gives Kurando hope, it keeps him at peace.

-

Kurando, as he has grown older and become more preoccupied with raising a child, often loses track of things. He forgets simple things, like turning off the lights or leaving his keys behind, or forgetting his watch. Sometimes he forgets an ingredient in a dish he’s cooking, and sometimes he goes to get groceries and misses something from his list.

One day, he forgets to put his Origami in his pocket. Losing it has never been a problem to him, as it usually stays near and always returns when he calls for it. But this time, when he calls the Kuma Origami to return to him, it doesn’t respond. 

He searches for it throughout the house and he finds it eventually in Chiaki’s bedroom. Chiaki’s hands prod at the little green contraption, and it nudges him back. He’s surprised, even though he’s seen it move freely before. Perhaps because he’s accustomed to it moving only at his father’s behest, and never being so responsive to him.

Kurando is no longer the only wielder of the wood mojikara, and so the Kuma Origami no longer answers solely to him. 

Kurando squats beside his son and reaches for the Origami, which pays him no mind. Its attention is solely on the child of its master. He sighs and snatches it off the floor, and it folds back into itself, a square laid flat in his palm. Chiaki attempts to grab at the Origami and Kurando chuckles.

Chiaki is six, nearly seven. His mojikara is potent for someone of his size, and Kurando should have begun to hone it sooner. He should have shown him how to properly hold a blade or a brush, should have begun to impart the significance of his heritage.

Kurando thinks it as good a time as any to bestow his Origami onto a new master.

He places the folded Kuma Origami in Chiaki’s small hands, and his son stares at it with wide eyes. The Kuma Origami is filled with the Tani family’s legacy, its mojikara. It is a source of power, a token of unity. He tells him it will be his protector for the times that Kurando cannot be, and that one day he will be able to use the Kuma to protect others as well. 

-

From then Chiaki begins his training. Kurando’s lessons are always light, not too deep or heavy, and laced with fun and games. He does his best to ease his son toward the path of bushido, rather than forcing it all on him at once.

Kurando shows his son the beginnings of proper sword technique. He lets him hold a paintbrush, gently guiding him left to right, up then down, lightly down left and down right, sweeping through kanji strokes.

When small leaves finally sprout from ink for the first time, and Chiaki’s eyes widen in surprise, Kurando pats him on the back. He repeats the strokes over and over, learns to control the plants to move the way he wants.

Chiaki controls but a few branches now. When he is older he will command the entire forest. Kurando tells him as much.

He asks when it will be his turn to become a Shinkenger. Kurando sighs and says that, hopefully, he never will.

-

Chiaki grows older. He enters middle school, boisterous and outgoing, and makes friends easily. He asks for a video game console, and Kurando is more than happy to oblige. Chiaki obsesses over his collection of games, but he promises that it won’t keep him from his schoolwork. He invites his friends over often, they crowd around his television and they take turns trying out new games.

At 12, Chiaki and his friends live their lives half-ignorant but fully-proud, trying to feel grown-up when they’re far from it. Chiaki starts to spend more time out with his friends, playing video games at home, or going to the arcade when he doesn’t have class. He doesn’t take things too seriously and he has very few cares in the world, just as a boy his age should be.

Chiaki doesn’t live or train with the intensity that Kurando did at his age. 

Chiaki still practices kanji, and every once in a while Kurando will give him a new sword technique. When he’s truly interested in something, he will ask and Kurando will show him, but he never needs to work too hard or take in too much at once. 

Kurando worries. 

He wonders if he is doing wrong by his son, by not raising him under the strict teachings that he himself grew up with. If Chiaki will understand his way of teaching, if he will grow into his own samurai—one that exists in the modern world, but still without completely relinquishing the value of tradition.

Chiaki is not one that should be held down by rules and restrictions. The power of the forest permeates every part of him. Chiaki is creative and energetic. He is a force of nature; he should be allowed to flourish the same way. He should grow in the way a tree does, roots ever-expanding, branches reaching great heights, reaching out far beyond his own limitations, and always unrelenting in the face of hardship, continuing to live even if he is struck down over and over. 

He hopes that he is right, that by giving his son so much freedom he will become someone great. 

-

Chiaki enters high school.

At home he is quieter, with his friends he is louder and more excitable. Kurando notices this but says nothing about it. It’s one of those things that can’t be helped; it’s only the two of them together for so long and so often that they’ve become stagnant. 

Days spent goofing off, playing around, running free—they have been exchanged for the stress and woes of young adulthood. It’s difficult to communicate with anyone at that age, so Kurando is patient with his son as best as possible. 

They have little to talk about and little to do in common. They don’t clash often; Kurando is too easygoing and Chiaki is too independent. Sometimes Kurando will do or say something that embarrasses his son, something that makes him seem out-of-touch, or a joke that doesn’t land quite right. Chiaki always rolls his eyes, sighs, takes it all in jest. 

It’s easier to allow Chiaki to do as he pleases. Kurando’s role is simply to guide and support him; he is not his master and he does not control him.

Kurando still practices with his sword, refreshes himself on kanji and his mojikara. Over time Chiaki has become less interested in being a samurai, and so he is much less concerned with practicing anything that has to do with it. After all, he is convinced he will never be called. Chiaki knows the basics of fighting and writing but Kurando has never taught him much more beyond that. 

Chiaki and his friends are still immature and get into trouble often. He skips school twice a week just for the hell of it, but at the same time, he is, by some miracle, able to keep his scores up. Most of his days are, however, spent in his room playing video games, or out with his friends playing video games. 

Chiaki takes the Kuma Origami with him wherever he goes, as he’s done ever since the day Kurando placed it in his hands.

-

And then Chiaki is summoned.

He’s still by all means a teenager, younger than Kurando was when he was called. And he is loath to admit it, but Chiaki is nowhere near prepared.

He blames himself, but he doesn't say this aloud as he watches his child pack his things and prepare to leave. They don’t exchange any words when Chiaki steps out of the house for the last time. At least, for what will be the last time for a while.

A black car comes to collect Chiaki. He walks out the front door, one bag slung over his shoulder and another gripped in his hand. Kurando follows him out, wanting to see him off.

Without a word Chiaki places his belongings inside the vehicle, then climbs into the passenger seat. Kurando watches the car as it disappears from his line of sight.

When the car is gone from view, the sun has begun to set, and he re-enters the house, a home meant for three people.

The house is empty.

-

At home Kurando becomes restless. 

He spends his time fretting about his son—whether he’s able to keep up with his peers, whether they understand him and his personality and his way of fighting. Chiaki does not bend to authority; now he serves under someone who he must call his lord. Chiaki is stubborn and has never deferred to anyone else; does he clash with whoever sits at the head of the Shiba clan? What will they do if Chiaki falls behind in the midst of a battle?

Chiaki is underprepared, his calligraphy is sloppy. He’s a fast learner but that can’t be enough to keep him at the same level as the others. He is reckless and his swordplay is such as well; does that hinder him in battle, does he get injured more easily? 

Does Chiaki feel inadequate, and if he does, does he blame Kurando for it? Does he resent his father for the way he was raised?

Chiaki is only a teenager, he had to drop out of school; when he returns home what will become of his education? Will it be years before Kurando sees his son again? When he returns home will he even be the same boy who left? 

Kurando hardly remembers what he was like before his own tenure as a Shinkenger. The man he is now, though, is nothing like the one who lived under the Shiba household all those years ago. 

-

Being outside reminds him that the world exists, that it continues despite the fact that he is alone. 

He takes walks through the city frequently, trying to take his mind off of the foreboding of his own home. The fresh air clears his nostrils, the sun beats down bright and hot. It becomes ritual to him, keeps his mind off his anxieties; he does everything he can to avoid being at home.

Being at home means that he cooks meals for one and that he eats meals as one. Being at home means seeing the small flourishes in the furniture and decoration that his wife had placed before she had died. Being at home reminds him that his son might never return, that he might be alone forever.

When Kurando is at home, the house feels too big but at the same time it starts to suffocate him. Chiaki’s room is still just as it was, though his closet and drawers are empty, and his things are beginning to collect dust.

-

The cut across Kurando’s arm stings, but it is barely noticeable, adrenaline keeping the pain at bay. The risk had been worth it; comparatively, none of the other hostages have been physically harmed, and the mother and her young child are no longer directly in the line of danger.

Kyoko Shiraishi’s daughter, Mako, is kind and understanding and strong; she is as great a samurai as her mother had hoped. She tells Kurando that Chiaki has a plan. Her expression remains calm, no tension visible in her face; she shows no signs of doubt in Chiaki’s abilities. The tension in Kurando’s shoulders lessens.

Chiaki bursts through the ceiling of the restaurant and he and Mako are swift, decisive with each cut as the Nanashi crumple to the floor. Kurando cannot take his eyes off of the way that Chiaki moves, transfixed by the finesse that his son uses with his blade, the severity of his expression. It is something unlike anything Kurando has seen his son do before.

Then the last of the Nanashi Renju come out, barreling toward Kurando, and Chiaki lets out a sound of surprise.

Kurando’s reflexes are still sharp, and so he grabs a sword and moves on instinct, striking without thought. He cuts down the last of the Nanashi with a welcome familiarity, as though he’d never given up his service—technically, one never can, and so he never did.

The adrenaline wears off and is instead replaced by pain, not too bad to be debilitating, but still painful nonetheless. Chiaki looks at him, brows knit together, and lets out a sigh. 

For all he worries about Chiaki, he had never realized that Chiaki worries about him too, in return.

-

He finds himself much more relaxed after that day. Chiaki is already leagues ahead of the place Kurando had left him. He’s a great fighter, fast on his feet, still bold and prideful but now with twice the strength to back himself up. His path is sure now, laid out for him to pursue; if he falters he will fall back against the unstoppable force of. 

When Kurando watches the news he often sees the reports of the strange, grotesque monsters that burst through cracks and wreak havoc upon the population. It’s still a surprise to him when people have never encountered Gedoushu before, and don’t know what they are. They were the things that he grew up learning about, and what he spent his entire young adulthood fighting.

He sees ShinkenOh towering over skyscrapers, striking down the Ayakashi without fail every time. Even so, his heart always races, adrenaline fills his body as though he were the one back on the battlefield.

ShinkenOh grows more and more, pieces stacking onto pieces, countless Origami folding together perfectly, until it becomes a near-immobile colossus that casts a darkness over half the city whenever it emerges. The unified power of the Shiba clan and its retainers. It is nothing like the Origami system of Kurando’s youth, they have unlocked powers that are far beyond the capacities of the previous generation—of his generation.

Chiaki’s team is tight, closer together than Kurando had been with the parents of his son’s peers. Whereas Kurando’s team had assembled all fully-trained and with little left to gain, Chiaki’s team is ever-growing, always improving.

He marvels at the strength of the new generation, who fight with more bravado than any of their predecessors. They are stronger than he and his former team could have ever dreamt.

-

Dokoku is defeated; not simply sealed away for the next eighteen years but in fact entirely destroyed. A swell rises in Kurando’s chest, overwhelmed with pride in his son, and in the children of his once-allies. Their children had succeeded where they had failed, and there is nothing that can describe how he feels—Kurando feels weighed down and weightless at the same time.

Chiaki returns home and Kurando almost doesn’t recognize him. He walks taller, with more confidence, he feels so much different, more mature. But Kurando still sees that brilliant child inside what is now a great warrior. 

They eat their first meal together since that day in the diner. Kurando has never been a great cook, so he puts together something small, prepares pancakes the way that Chiaki has always liked them. 

Chiaki insists on helping set up the table, something that surprises Kurando. He tells Chiaki not to worry, that he should be relaxing after a year of hard work, after saving the world. 

As they eat together, seated across from one another at the table, they talk and catch up on the moments missed after the last time they’d spoken. He tells Kurando of the things he’s learned, of the new techniques he’s gained, the Ayakashi he’s fought and people he’s saved, the things and places he’s seen. Chiaki’s eyes light up when he talks about the other Shinkengers. His friends, he calls them—something that Kurando had never once considered his own generation. 

Chiaki is still sharp, intelligent, expressive, he is less impulsive and more refined. His eyes are still fiery with defiance but newly worn with experience.

Kurando smiles when he sees his son has grown into the kind of man that he’d always hoped he would become. Someone strong and sure of who he is. Chiaki thrives without restrictions, and is someone capable and fearless. He is someone full of life, and will continue to live it the way he dictates.

Kurando is happy. He is the happiest he has ever been. 

Chiaki smiles. Kurando finds himself smiling, too.

**Author's Note:**

> As I said in the tags, I think of this as a sort of experiment. I didn't really know what I was doing with this. I kind of wanted to do a character study of Kurando. He's an interesting guy, even for being in one episode, so I wanted to just...jump into his head, I guess. 
> 
> I know there's not particularly a lot of people out there who are into Super Sentai, but for those that are and that did read this brain dump, thank you. 
> 
> Whether you loved or hated this, I'd love a comment if you're willing.


End file.
